Unpopular Opinion: All DAWS suck (for playing live)

[pdxindy]

Somehow thousands of artist perform live with the current offerings.

As for changing presets, in ableton one good way to change between sounds is to use a an instrument rack with several instruments in it and use a macro control for selection, you can automate it.

The problem with that way is all instruments are loaded into the CPU at all times. Live is a lot less forgiving than other DAWs doing this. Bitwig supposedly does a good job with this. I haven't done a shootout though.

Bitwig's Instrument and FX Selector devices work great in this regard.

Unused layers don't use CPU... it is very efficient. Beyond that the Selector devices are working well in other ways.

For example, if you play some notes with a long release or reverb tail, then switch layers, those notes will finish and not get cut even as you play notes in the new layer. If you hold the notes on one layer, then switch layers, the held notes keep being held while you play notes on the new layer. So you can play and hold a chord, switch layers, play other sounds, switch layers, play different sounds and the held chord will still be held.

If you use the arpeggiator in a layer, hold the note, switch layers the arp will keep playing while you play notes on the new layer. And if you are using MPE, that held arp note on the previous layer can be modulated by pressure to control arp note volume while playing new notes on the new layer. Held notes from a previously selected layer still respond to MPE so you can do pitch slides, pressure and timbre.

And because you can set a range of midi notes to switch layers, it is immediate and hands on and you can decide in the moment which layers to play or not.

[zerocrossing]

How many times does one need to change a preset during a song?

I know this is probably a rhetorical question, but hey..
One song I used to do in Live with Kore involved Session clips launching various parts of the song, on vocal queues from the singer, and with most parts the keyboard set up would change with the Session clip from Kontakt, to Zebra then to Massive for the big break, this was common in that line up.

But just as easy to let multiple tracks handle it, no? I play live with a DAW and I just switch what track’s enabled to switch sounds.

[machinesworking]

How many times does one need to change a preset during a song?

I know this is probably a rhetorical question, but hey..
One song I used to do in Live with Kore involved Session clips launching various parts of the song, on vocal queues from the singer, and with most parts the keyboard set up would change with the Session clip from Kontakt, to Zebra then to Massive for the big break, this was common in that line up.

But just as easy to let multiple tracks handle it, no? I play live with a DAW and I just switch what track’s enabled to switch sounds.

Not really I was playing two handed parts. Session View fired both the bridge of a song, and the change in Kore from Absynth to Kontakt etc. with program change messages. It was pretty great, then Kore was discontinued, and is a bug fest at this point as you would expect.

Another example is Amplitube. I use program change messages to switch presets, sometimes in the middle of a song to add a delay in etc. Again to change complete presets when using Scenes in Live for entire songs, or Chunks in DP.

It's a really useful feature to have, it's been depreciated mostly IMO because at one point computers were for the most part not fast enough not to glitch with bigger plug ins, not a problem anymore, but the industry has sidelined program change messages because at first VSTs couldn't always handle them.

What would be fantastic is if MIDI 2.0 implemented advanced program changes with the actual names of the patch etc. instead of 1-128.

[jamcat]

I've been a bit curious about Studio One for a while now, mostly because I like the really clean interface and layout, now I am definitely going to have to give a good workout and wait for a half-price sale.

I told you it would just be a matter of time.

[Ian Mackie]

Orbital in 2012 with their live (slimmed down) set-up with Ableton.

[antic604]

Even ableton doesn't have jump marker"s" which automatically jumps to previous maker while it's claiming it is for Live. It has just a loop brace. No way to do : ||, ||:, D.C, D.S, To Coda. So I think No daw has reached to the degree of perfection in live usage.

How would that be different from using Session View which - I thought - was designed for this? Serious question, because I've no clue what you mean by ": ||, ||:, D.C, D.S, To Coda"

[tooneba]

Even ableton doesn't have jump marker"s" which automatically jumps to previous maker while it's claiming it is for Live. It has just a loop brace. No way to do : ||, ||:, D.C, D.S, To Coda. So I think No daw has reached to the degree of perfection in live usage.

How would that be different from using Session View which - I thought - was designed for this? Serious question, because I've no clue what you mean by ": ||, ||:, D.C, D.S, To Coda"

Other people already created FR. You need to break down linearly structured song into small segments and program the order to fit into session view to gain some functionality which people think would be comfortable in rather linear view. IIRC FL has more functionality in jumping marker than ableton. It might be in more traditional daw like cubas, logic, etc, idk.

[machinesworking]

Even ableton doesn't have jump marker"s" which automatically jumps to previous maker while it's claiming it is for Live. It has just a loop brace. No way to do : ||, ||:, D.C, D.S, To Coda. So I think No daw has reached to the degree of perfection in live usage.

How would that be different from using Session View which - I thought - was designed for this? Serious question, because I've no clue what you mean by ": ||, ||:, D.C, D.S, To Coda"

Other people already created FR. You need to break down linearly structured song into small segments and program the order to fit into session view to gain some functionality which people think would be comfortable in rather linear view. IIRC FL has more functionality in jumping marker than ableton. It might be in more traditional daw like cubas, logic, etc, idk.

Reaper does a great job with markers and song arrangements, but realistically you could do all the same things in Session View or Bitwig/DP/Logics clip launchers. It's more about what makes you the end user comfortable here, not about actual functionality.

[antic604]

Other people already created FR. You need to break down linearly structured song into small segments and program the order to fit into session view to gain some functionality which people think would be comfortable in rather linear view. IIRC FL has more functionality in jumping marker than ableton. It might be in more traditional daw like cubas, logic, etc, idk.

Thanks! So it's just about automating the process of transformating linear song into Session View vertical slices? I don't see how this is even an issue currently. AFAIR you just mark time selection and make a scene out of it. Repeat the process few times and you have your linear song sliced into scenes, which you can loop, skip, play in different order, etc. You can do the same in Bitwig, probably also in Logic or DP.

It just sounds like someone - the FR creator - refuses to work in Session View, to do what it was designed for.

[wuworld]

You got 20 and 21 years old doing live performances in Ableton, FL Studio etc. So live performance can be done with what's out.

can you really call them performances though? A lot of these live shows are them pressing one button and bobbing their head.

They are getting the work aren't they? While those complain are sitting at home on KVR.

[BONES]

Are they?

[tooneba]

Reaper does a great job with markers and song arrangements, but realistically you could do all the same things in Session View or Bitwig/DP/Logics clip launchers. It's more about what makes you the end user comfortable here, not about actual functionality.

Yeah by deconstructing and translating repetition symbol into segments can replicate linear structure. I can't argue which is better or not though.

Thanks! So it's just about automating the process of transformating linear song into Session View vertical slices? I don't see how this is even an issue currently. AFAIR you just mark time selection and make a scene out of it. Repeat the process few times and you have your linear song sliced into scenes, which you can loop, skip, play in different order, etc. You can do the same in Bitwig, probably also in Logic or DP.

It just sounds like someone - the FR creator - refuses to work in Session View, to do what it was designed for.

I think It's is rather called keeping it simple rather than automating the process. You don't need to reinventing the wheel when linear view can provide the visual feedback of flow of song. By translating the linear structure into independent containers (session view) it just sacrifices the visual feedback that is like what sheet music does for getting containers which can be triggered independently.

[antic604]

I think It's is rather called keeping it simple rather than automating the process. You don't need to reinventing the wheel when linear view can provide the visual feedback of flow of song. By translating the linear structure into independent containers (session view) it just sacrifices the visual feedback that is like what sheet music does for getting containers which can be triggered independently.

Ok, I see. But still Session View has several advantages over such Arrangement View feature, e.g.:

• you can have clip automation that's decoupled from scene loop, so e.g. a scene is 1 bar long, but automation for it is 2, 4, 8, 16, whatever
• you can use dummy clips with different FX parameters and mix & match them however you want across multiple scenes
• you can play clips / segments out of current scene along with current scene to improvise, respond to crowd, etc.
• if you slice the arrangement song right, its version in Session View will be identical and can be made to play identical "by itself", too

I somehow feel the feature you're describing was "invented" for traditional DAWs to replicate Live's functionality without going into the effort of developing dedicated view

But sure, I wouldn't mind them adding it. Not using Live anyway

[BONES]

After less than a week with Studio One I am declaring it the best host ever for live performance. And I haven't even looked at the SHOW PAGE stuff yet. The fact that I can load the half-a-dozen songs I have already ported over from Orion and Cubase and switch between them instantaneously is really more than I could have hoped for. If I can raise that to an entire set, say 12 songs, I will be over the moon. But even if I have to load half the set and then load the other half while on stage, that will be a huge improvement over Orion, even when Orion worked properly. Songs also seem to load faster on S1 than with Cubase or Orion, which is another bonus.

The cherry on top is that, so far, I quite like working in S1, too. It's like they looked at Cubase and copied the stuff that worked and left out all the stuff that was clunky or redundant. My combined experience with Orion and Cubase has made it an easy transition and I have been able to work out how to do pretty much everything I need to without any hassle. Last night I transferred three songs into it in a little over an hour, one from Cubase and two from Orion. They'll need some tweaking but all the bits are in and working. At this rate, I should be able to be up and running full-time in Studio One in a few weeks, not the few months I anticipated it would take. Exciting times!